On reflection, I think you explain the data better than I, but I maintain that the equilibrium you describe is not stable.
Specifically, it is not a neutral principal—one side on a substantive disagreement can be suppressed by creation of a social norm that the side is too close to a live partisan political debate while the other side far enough from the live debate not to be suppressed.
Or, rather, I agree that some ideas violate the local norm more strongly than others (and, in particular, more than a given opposed idea) and that consequently the local norm isn’t ideologically neutral. There exist partisan positions that LW collectively implicitly supports, and partisan positions that LW collectively implicitly rejects.
Whether that makes the norm unstable in any practical sense, I’m not quite sure, though it seems intuitively plausible. (I agree that the norm is unstable in a technical sense, but I can’t see why anyone ought to care.)
I recognize that there are people here who would at least claim to disagree with you, on grounds I don’t entirely understand but which at least sometimes have to do with the idea that this community is “exceptionally rational” and that this renders us relatively immune to normal primate social dynamics. I’m not one of them. (I’m also not entirely convinced that anyone actually believes this.)
On reflection, I think you explain the data better than I, but I maintain that the equilibrium you describe is not stable.
Specifically, it is not a neutral principal—one side on a substantive disagreement can be suppressed by creation of a social norm that the side is too close to a live partisan political debate while the other side far enough from the live debate not to be suppressed.
(nods) Oh, absolutely.
Or, rather, I agree that some ideas violate the local norm more strongly than others (and, in particular, more than a given opposed idea) and that consequently the local norm isn’t ideologically neutral. There exist partisan positions that LW collectively implicitly supports, and partisan positions that LW collectively implicitly rejects.
Whether that makes the norm unstable in any practical sense, I’m not quite sure, though it seems intuitively plausible. (I agree that the norm is unstable in a technical sense, but I can’t see why anyone ought to care.)
I recognize that there are people here who would at least claim to disagree with you, on grounds I don’t entirely understand but which at least sometimes have to do with the idea that this community is “exceptionally rational” and that this renders us relatively immune to normal primate social dynamics. I’m not one of them. (I’m also not entirely convinced that anyone actually believes this.)
That . . . makes me feel a lot better, actually. I suppose that fragile is a better adjective than unstable for what I was trying to say.